


Plain To See

by afteriwake



Series: Stuff Of Improbable Legends [57]
Category: Eureka
Genre: Advice, Aftermath of an Argument, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Inspired by Roleplay/Roleplay Adaptation, Male-Female Friendship, One-Sided Zane Donovan/Skye | Daisy Johnson, POV Zoe, Relationship Advice, Roleplay Logs, poor zane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-03 01:36:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6591328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Zane and Daisy have a fight after the Spring Fling, Zoe can see he's miserable, and she talks to him about it, telling him some things he needs to hear whether he really wants to or not, but helping him see maybe there's some hope in the situation, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plain To See

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sideofrawr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sideofrawr/gifts).



> So this weekend, after we had one of our doctors leave the game, I decided to bring in a post-finale Zoe Carter after she had finished medical school and was now Dr. Carter, and **sideofrawr** and I decided we were going to have some fun and use that to push forward the Zane/Daisy ship in game (so I'll be shifting and editing the fics we have in the series were we get them together to set them earlier). But there's going to be a fight after the Spring Fling between Zane and Daisy because she's _super_ jealous even if she's in complete denial so this is set after that.

The atmosphere in the house was different since the dance. It was...off. Zoe could sense it even if Zane was putting up a front for Em that everything was fine. She could see Cami could see it too. 

He _needed_ Daisy around kind of like he needed air to breathe.

It was weird for her, in a way, because she was so used to seeing him with Jo. She was used to seeing him look at Jo the way he saw him look at Daisy here, with that look of just...love and adoration. Even if _Daisy_ had no clue he looked at her like that, it was kind of obvious to everyone else, or at least it was to her. 

She had no idea why he’d taken Thea to the dance. It hadn’t been to make Daisy jealous, she’d gotten that much. It had seemed to be just to make Thea happy, because he was trying to make a friend happy. He’d been that kind of guy ever since he figured out he didn’t need to be a jerk, when he got his crap with Jo sorted out. But he'd been miserable at the dance, and then Thea had said _something_ that had just kind of...she didn't know, killed any kind of mood he had to celebrate, and he left early to go see Daisy and then they had a fight, and he was in a foul mood when she came back and then _they_ had a fight and he'd been miserable ever since.

 _Her_ news of the future he had in Eureka probably hadn’t helped, being from a few years in the future, with Zane being happily married to Jo with a daughter who he adored and maybe another kid on the way. She’d lived through stuff with alternate universes before, and having people with knowledge of one universe interacting with people from another. Having people with future knowledge wasn’t much different, and she had the feeling Zane wasn’t the only one freaking about the knowledge he actually had a _happy_ future in store for him in Eureka.

She liked Daisy and all, thought she was a good person, but the woman was in _deep_ denial because really, she liked him in a “more than friends” way. And until she admitted it to herself she was going to push Zane away and that was going to make _him_ miserable and that was going to make her grouchy at Daisy.

But right now, she just wanted to make sure Zane was okay. She just needed to make sure about something first, make sure they were okay. She'd been kind of avoiding him, spending more time with Jackson than him, but Zane was her friend and he needed her and it was shitty of her not to be there.

Cami and Em were in their rooms, and Zane was parked in front of the television, just flipping through the channels, not really watching anything that was on. She sat next to him, close but not close, and looked over at him. “So, whatcha doing?” she asked, even though it was very obvious.

He didn’t turn away from the screen. “Channel surfing,” he said, his voice flat and his tone rather dead.

She nodded. Yup. Miserable. She watched as, briefly, the channel landed on _her_ channel and there was an ad onscreen for her show and he paused to watch it. She’d gotten the gist of it was something he actively helped her avoid because her life was a complete 180 from theirs and really sucked; she hadn’t watched the show back home but she’d seen the movies and had the general idea Marvel characters lives weren’t walks in the park. She watched as his eyes lit up for _just_ a second when Daisy was onscreen before this hurt came on his face and he changed the channel.

“You know you look at her the same way you look at Jo back home, right?” Zoe said, leaning against the other arm of the couch.

He scowled slightly at that. “I do not,” he said.

“Not the ‘I want to jump her bones’ way you did when I was there before Harvard,” Zoe continued. “Afterward. After you two got married and had Maria. I didn’t see it all that much till I came back to help Allison at the clinic, just when I could come away on break and be with my family and all, but you’d get this _look_ , this really tender and adorable look, and it was just the sweetest thing. And you give Daisy that look a lot.”

The scowl eased off his face. “You’re not saying I love her, are you?” he said.

“No, but I’m saying you care about her a hell of a lot,” she said. “I’m not the only one who sees it. Cami does, too. I’m sure there are other people who do too and just aren’t saying anything. Phil said he could see something when we talked, just because I asked.”

“He probably did,” Zane said. Then he sighed. “What am I going to do, Zoe? I don’t think she and I want the same thing.”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Most of the guys I knew who put me in this position weren’t my best friend and were assholes about it.” She titled her head slightly, her brown hair falling onto the arm of the couch. “Don’t go trying to make her jealous, I guess. You have some flirty female friends, so don’t get all close to them. Give her some time and space to sort herself out, see what she wants. She may decide she _just_ wants to be friends, and if she does, either respect that or let her go, no matter how much it kills you. If you really want to be the good guy she thinks you are, you have to respect her decisions.” She leaned forward at that point. “And if you even _think_ I’m going to let you go back to becoming the womanizing jackass you used to be I’ll kick your ass or something if you try.”

“You and most of my friends here,” he said with a chuckle, a slight grin appearing on his face. She leaned back against the arm of the couch and nodded. Good. He seemed...better. That was something. He gestured to his DVD cabinet and then looked over at her. “Feel like working our way through some of our life history? Or more your life history. I don’t even show up till season 2.”

She grinned at that. “Sure. Anything I’m going to regret seeing?”

“Probably, but nothing like _epically_ bad,” he said, getting up and going to the DVDs. “Though there was this thing with red hair you might cringe at.”

She winced. “Oh, don’t remind me. I’m happy with my nice brunette look now, thankyouverymuch.”

“I never mentioned that I really like it,” he said. “It suits you. I mean, it’s definitely a good look for an older you.”

“Thanks, Zane. Allison recommended it last time we went to go have a girls day out and I think it was the perfect choice.” She looked over at his kitchen. “I think we should have popcorn, too.”

“One of the gadgets I have is an instant popcorn popper from Vincent. You remember how to work it?”

Zoe made a scoffing noise. “With all the popcorn I had to make for various marathons and whatnot? Yeah, I remember. I’ll have popcorn for us in no time.” She moved over to him as he came back to the TV and gave him a hug. “It’ll work out, I think. I hope. She’ll figure it out and things’ll be okay. Okay?”

He gave her a hug back. “I hope,” he said, resting his chin on her shoulder. She held him tight as in the back of her mind she silently added _I hope so too_.


End file.
